Part I: Introduction and Key Concepts
Introduction
- About the Author
- Foreword by Prof. Wil v.d. Aalst
- Navigating the Industrial Revolution of Intelligence
- Target Audience
- How to Read this Book
- A Big Thank You
Key Concepts
2.1 From the Beginning to Today
- Foundations (before the 1950s)
- The Birth of Artificial Intelligence (1950s–1970s)
- The AI Winters (1970s–1980s)
- Learning from Data (1990s–Early 2010s)
- The Deep Learning Revolution (2010s–2020)
- The Era of Transformer Models (2020+)
- AI as an Innovation Catalyst
- The Accelerating Velocity of AI Innovation
2.2 From Today to Tomorrow
- Next Stop: Trough of Disillusionment?
- AI in Mathematics
- AI in Biology
- Continual Learning
- Humanoid Robots
- Machine Economy
- Artificial General Intelligence
2.3 Infrastructure for AI 21
- Data Centers
- AI Semiconductor Technology
- Energy Consumption
- Sustainability Impact
2.4 A Geopolitical Powerplay
- AI and Critical Infrastructure
- Digital Sovereignty
- AI Regulation
2.5 AI and the Labor Markets
- AI Talent at the International Level
- AI Talent at National Level and Industry Level
- AI Talent at Corporate Level
- AI Effects on the Labor Markets
2.6 Industrial Context
- Digital Twins
- Software-Defined Automation
- Industrial Metaverse
- Digital Threads
2.7 AI Technology
- Traditional AI
- Generative AI
- Agentic AI
- Technology Outlook
Part II: Adoption Hurdles
Why Industry is Harder
3.1 Industry Among Industries
3.2 Specifics of Sub-Industries
3.3 Potential by Function
Making AI Industrial-grade
4.1 Model Level
4.2 Execution Environment Level
4.3 Hardware Considerations
4.4 User Experience and Adoption
4.5 AI and ML Operations
4.6 Data Access and Acquisition
- Intellectual Property and Trade Secrets in Data
- Intellectual Property Rights on Data
- Valuation and Taxation of Data
- Shop-floor Semantics
- Data Scarcity
- Data Quality
4.7 Ecosystem Partnerships
4.8 Requirements Engineering for AI
4.9 The Role of an AI Bill of Materials
4.10 Managing Quality in Agentic Environments
- Supervisor Agents
- Digital Reasoning Thread
- Process Mining for Agent and Process Compliance
Business Case Mechanics
5.1 The Macroeconomic Perspective
5.2 The Productivity Promises of Industry 4.0
5.3 Business-to-Consumer vs. Business-to-Business Scaling
5.4 Foundational Capability vs. Use Case ROI
- Foundational Capability Value
- AI Use Case Value
5.5 Pilot Purgatory
5.6 Use Case Scalability Assessment
5.7 AI-driven Business Models
Cultural Adoption Hurdles
6.1 Engineering Culture
6.2 The Competence Penalty
Legal Hurdles
7.1 IP Protection of AI-generated Outcomes
7.2 IP Rights on Training Data
7.3 IP Protection of AI Models
7.4 Liabilities
Part III: From Ambition to Action
Motivation and Timing
Access to Industrial Data
9.1 Soft Sensors
9.2 Data Standards
- Open Platform Communication Unified Architecture
- Asset Administration Shell
- The Digital Product Passport
- NAMUR Open Architecture
- Hermes and Gerber
9.3 Synthetic Data
9.4 Reinforcement Learning
9.5 Physics-Informed Neural Networks
9.6 Federated Learning
9.7 Data Spaces
9.8 Public and Commercial Datasets
Access to AI Talent
10.1 Hiring and Retaining AI Talent
10.2 Employee AI Literacy
Mastering AI Technology
11.1 Make vs. Buy
- Speed and Semantics
- Access to External Data and Fleet Learning
- Differentiation and the Digital Thread
- Hybrid Approaches
11.2 Open Source vs. Commercial LLMs
- Public Commercial API
- Private Commercial Environment
- Managed Open Source
- Self-Hosted Open Source
AI Governance
ML Operations
13.1 DevOps
13.2 Data Operations
- DataOps and Data Governance
- Data Pipelines
- Data Products
- Data Lineage
- Data Lakes
13.3 Machine Learning Operations
Part IV: Enterprise Functions and AI Use Cases
Strategy & Corporate Development
14.1 Strategy and Foresight / Market Research
14.2 Mergers & Acquisitions
Innovation Management & Research
15.1 Idea Management
15.2 Intellectual Property Management
15.3 Research
- Materials Discovery
- Patent Analytics
- Laboratory & Experiment Management
Planning & Controlling
16.1 Planning
16.2 Controlling and Reporting
Finance & Accounting
17.1 Finance
17.2 Accounting
17.3 Regulatory Intelligence & Monitoring
17.4 Transfer Pricing
Asset Management
18.1 Plant Inspection & Change Management
- Red-lining
- Plant Inspection
18.2 Machine Maintenance
18.3 Fleet Management
Audit
Product Design & Engineering
20.1 Computer-Aided Design
- Mechanical CAD
- Electrical CAD
20.2 Computer-Aided Engineering
- Simulation
- Design Space Exploration
- Product Data Management
- Model-Based Systems Engineering
20.3 Product Design Quality Assurance
- Design Rule Checking
- Design For Manufacturability
- Supply Chain Analytics for Parts
20.4 Computer-Aided Process Planning
- Discrete Manufacturing: From BOM to BOP
- Computer-Assisted Synthesis Planning
20.5 Computer-Aided Manufacturing
- CAM for Machining
- CAM for Additive Manufacturing
- CAM for Electronics Manufacturing
- On-Demand Manufacturing Marketplaces
- CAM for Process Industries
Customer Interaction & Sales
21.1 Prospect and Customer Profiling
21.2 Customer Interaction Support
- Follow-Up Automation
- Account and Sales Manager Support
21.3 Product Sales
21.4 System Sales
21.5 Project Sales
Sourcing & Procurement
22.1 Supplier Selection and Coordination
22.2 Supply Chain Monitoring
22.3 Materials Requirements Planning
22.4 Costing
22.5 Incoming Goods Inspection
22.6 Three-Way-Match (Continuous Controls Monitoring)
Inventory Management
Production
24.1 Plant Design and Engineering
24.2 Production Engineering
- Production Engineering in Process Industries
- Production Engineering for Discrete Manufacturing
24.3 Production Planning and Control
24.4 Material Requirements Planning
24.5 Production Scheduling
24.6 Manufacturing Execution
24.7 Material Handling
- AGVs, AMRs, and Fleet Management
- Depalletizing, Palletizing, and Singulation
- Machine Tending
24.8 Press Shop
24.9 Machining
24.10 Tool Management
24.11 Additive Manufacturing
24.12 Welding
24.13 Assembly
- Guided Worker Assembly
- Robotic Assembly
- Electronics Assembly
24.14 Paint Shop
24.15 Quality Control
- Quality Prediction
- Quality Inspection
- Root Cause Analysis
24.16 Robotics
24.17 Machine Setup and Parameter Calibration
24.18 Machine Operations
24.19 Occupational Health and Safety
24.20 Connected Worker
Distribution Logistics
25.1 Demand Forecasting & Inventory Balancing
25.2 Order Allocation, Picking & Packaging
- Order Allocation
- Picking & Kitting
- Packaging
- Palletizing
25.3 Shipping & Transportation Logistics
- Freight Carrier Selection
- Customs & Import/Export Clearance
- Freight Cost Control
Customer Service
26.1 Service Desk Agent Training
26.2 Complaint and Issue Management
26.3 Technician Field Force Management
26.4 Disposal & Recycling
Marketing & Communication
Human Resources
28.1 Recruitment & Hiring
28.2 Timesheeting
28.3 Payroll Processing
28.4 Training
Legal & Compliance
29.1 Legal & Contract Management
29.2 Compliance Management
Real Estate & Facility Management
30.1 Building Security Management
30.2 Visitor Management
30.3 Building Energy Management
Information Technology
31.1 IT Service Management
- Service Desk
- Autonomous Operations
- Change and Asset Management
31.2 Enterprise Architecture Management
- AI-based Discovery
- Dependency Mapping
31.3 Cybersecurity
31.4 Software Development
- Requirements Engineering
- Code Generation
- Quality Assurance and Documentation
- Run-time Debugging
- Refactoring
- Application Integration
- Vibe Coding
31.5 Workplace Services
- Note Taking
- Real-Time Voice Translation
Shared Services
32.1 Business Partner Master Data Management
32.2 Invoicing & Credit Note Issuance
32.3 Business Travel Management
32.4 Document Translation
Part V: Conclusion and Annexes
Conclusion
Annexes
34.1 References
34.2 Company Register
34.3 Table Index
34.4 Figure Index
34.5 Abbreviations